


The L-word

by Blackbird Song (Blackbird_Song)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Study, Internal Monologue, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:59:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackbird_Song/pseuds/Blackbird%20Song
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just a little bug that caught me when I was pondering things one night. Many thanks to my husband for the beta.</p>
    </blockquote>





	The L-word

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bug that caught me when I was pondering things one night. Many thanks to my husband for the beta.

L is for Lisa. Ianto loved Lisa, and she loved him. He had believed this until the day she told him that they weren't compatible and threw him by the neck across the pool to his death. Which he survived.

L is for Lie. Ianto is very good at lying. He had to learn it young to keep out of trouble with parents, school teachers and the authorities. He'd slipped when he'd got caught shoplifting, but had succeeded in not getting done for all the other naughty things he'd managed to pull off. That's why he'd had no compunction at all about trying on a few different lies for one Captain Jack Harkness when he'd needed a job in Cardiff. And besides, it had been for Lisa, so that made it all right, didn't it? Even if it made him burn with such shame that he couldn't stop the thick, disgusting tears that oozed from his soul as he left the man he'd just duped—who'd just made him feel alive again for the first time in months—in the warehouse with an unconscious pteranodon. He'd even lied about the name, because 'pterodactyl' would catch his prey where the correct term would not. And even after what Lisa had done, he'd still loved her, still tried to help her, still couldn't kill her, even when he'd finally _known_ that he should. And that had made him a lie.

L is for Lenience, which Jack granted him and Ianto despises. Except when he asked for it for Lisa, of course. That was different. Ianto despises anything that doesn't make sense, like Jack's lenience towards him set against his cruelty to Lisa. He despised it even more when it seemed like pity for a naive twat of a boy who didn't know everything, after all. That idea stings too much. Most of all, he despised it when he felt such overwhelming, reflexive relief that he was going to live, when he should have been seeking dark oblivion. But Jack had made it bearable by suspending him, and allowing him to think that his reprieve was a punishment stronger than death. And at least Torchwood was dark, then, dark enough to cover tears and blood and loathing.

L is for Loathe. The verb. Ianto loathes messiness, physical or emotional. He'd conceded to the emotional long since, first at One and now at Three. Since he couldn't see himself living without Torchwood, there didn't seem much point in doing anything else. He applies all his mess-hate to the physical now, jumping away from the spew and blood and slime that always seem to fly at his suits, even though he'd figured out how to reproduce the alien spray with which he douses himself and Jack's coat every day to make it all bounce off. He also loathes lying to Jack, even for the purposes of enhancing a surprise or a present. It brings back the bleak, black weeks of Lisa and lying and loathing Jack.

L is for Last, which Jack will and Ianto won't. Not this time, at any rate. And it's interesting that it really doesn't bother Ianto that he knows that this metaphor remains intact and accurately focused as the lens pulls back from their tryst to encompass their mortality. And then further to view eternity. Though eternity can't really be viewed, can it? So perhaps in the true scheme of things, there will be a point at the edge of the human capacity to conceive vast magnitudes and vicissitudes of space-time when Jack will stay dead. Far beyond that, there could even be a point past the edge of rationality when Jack might be forgotten, but Ianto has never been able to allow that to cross further than a nanometre into his mind before dismissing it. His sanity starts to quiver and liquefy at the thought, and he can't have that.

L is for Liquefy, which Ianto does right now as he comes inside Jack, squeezing Jack's cock hard to stave off the inevitable until Ianto has him where he wants him. It is also for Liquid, Liquidity, Liquefaction and (Jack's favourite) Liquescence, which describe various pleasant states of physical, financial and linguistic fluidity in ways that capture Jack's attention and make him beg, mostly nicely, for Ianto's. In his current state of liquefaction, Ianto is a bit surprised and more than a bit smug to find that he can realise that he really should find a way to use 'linguistic' in a sentence at the next briefing. If he contrasts the liquescent 'L' with an imploded 'C', Jack will find a way to end the meeting within one minute. Two, at the outside. Perhaps he should start a pool, but...

...L is for Loath. The adjective. Ianto is loath to describe his relationship with Jack as anything more than 'dabbling', when asked. He also loathes it when people do ask. Where he sticks his dick is nobody's business, unless they're the ones in whom he is sticking it. Similarly, it's nobody's business who might be sticking their dick into him. Which, at this precise moment, just happens to be Jack, because it is his turn, and Ianto has him were he wants him when he turns his head to tongue "Liquefy!" into Jack's right ear.

L is for Lassitude, in which Ianto basks while pointedly refusing to think about the horrible word, 'afterglow'. It has always struck him as the sort of word that should only be applied to a nuclear aftermath, and as such, should never be allowed anywhere near his balls, metaphorically or otherwise. Of course, Jack tends to disagree on such separation. Jack feels that 'nuclear' and 'sex' belong not only in the same sentence, but side by side, or smashed together into one word. He'd even suggested the possibility of having them put through the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. (Come to think of it, Ianto still wonders why the thing broke so close on the heels of their departure.) Lassitude is fun, relaxing and healthful; the farthest thing from any form of catastrophe. It is also safer than the A-word because while he's lying so close—and naked—to Jack, coming down off the giddy heights and winds of orgasm and power to land in the charged tenderness that just happens to sweep him up at the very moment that Jack's arms do, he's in the greatest danger of mistaking what they have for something that they don't, and having his tongue slip.

L is never, ever for Love. Not since Lisa, and never again. Ever. He can't afford it. Really. Simply can't. Not ever. It's dangerous on the job, especially now that he's in the field so much. It's completely impractical, given that there aren't any eligible people within his line of work. No, really. There aren't. Gwen's married, Owen and Tosh are dead (Owen especially so, in a cruel twist of irony) and the new people haven't arrived, yet. Haven't even been hired. Silly twat, Jack. And Jack doesn't _do_ the L-word. Besides, even the memory of it hurts so fucking much that his muscles start to seize as he thinks of it. Jack seems to notice, and warms himself around Ianto. As Jack asks and pets and soothes and kisses, Ianto begins to wonder if the chain on the gate can really hold. He takes deep, steadying breaths slowly enough (he hopes) that Jack won't notice. When at last he's worked up something sufficiently frothy, he glances into Jack's eyes. And knows he's been done. And ponders his next move.

Fortunately, L is also for Latitude.


End file.
